Category: Telephone Techniques

If you’re on a call with a customer, and more than three, or four seconds go by, and you haven’t said a word, that’s called dead air space. You’re working… you know that. But for the customer, dead air space feels awkward. So we need to learn the best way to fill the silent seconds.

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How did 2017 go for you? Employees still struggling with how to control calls with unreasonable customers? Your customer experience still not where you know it needs to be? Still trying to get your people to convey empathy? I know. The struggle is real.

The real question is: how will you gear up to make 2018 better?

Let me give your people the tactics, skills, and inspiration they need so they can deliver experiences that make you feel proud.

I try to make my training easy – for you, your employees, and even for me, by offering it online. I still do onsite training, of course, but online training saves time and money. And it keeps me off of planes.

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In a series of events, people remember the first thing, and the last thing, more than anything else. That’s why the way you open a call, and the way you end a call, is so meaningful.

Your call closing must do two things.

You need to share any next steps with your customer; and then, you need to end with a fond farewell. In this article, you’ll learn how to assertively bring calls to closure, and end with a fond farewell.

1. Start the call closure process by giving the customer any next steps.

Sharing next steps lets the customer know the call is almost over, and, this helps you to close the call quickly.

If you have next steps, just, share them. “Alright, Deon. I have processed your return. We’ll go ahead and ship the blue Nike Elite socks, and you should have those within 4-7 business days. You can check the status of your return by logging into our website.”

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In March I facilitated a 2-day Soft Skills training for more than a hundred people for a client in South Dakota. Do you know how hard one must work to keep 100 people fully engaged for 2 full days?

Hard. You have to work hard. And creatively. Of course, one must have endless energy too.

Fortunately I am anointed to engage audiences with boundless energy and stories. But it takes more than that. You have to engage audiences and keep them nearly spellbound. Or else you’ll lose them to their smart phones or thoughts.

I was going into the final inning of this 2-day training in South Dakota. Participants had just returned from lunch. If you’re a seasoned trainer, you know that the hardest part of training is right after lunch. That’s when you are at the greatest risk of losing your audience.

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When I managed a contact center, I actually had our phones set to come on 5 minutes before our posted hours and to stay on 5 minutes past our posted hours. I did this because I wanted to surprise and delight our early bird customers and I wanted to offer relief to upset customers who just couldn’t call before quitting time.

An excellent service experience from top to bottom has always been a fierce focus of mine. Today I discovered a grocery store that shares my idea of opening up just a little earlier for customers and staying open later. I’ll get to that in a minute. First, let me tell you about a service fail.

My daughter and I walked into a drug store 15 minutes before closing one night. The lights were already dimmed, and the closing announcement blasted over the PA system at least 3 times during our short trip to the store. Employees were busy shutting down registers and scurrying around to get things locked down by 9 pm. My daughter and I felt like unwelcome guests at a party, and we felt compelled to rush our shopping so that the workers could get out of the building no later than 9:01 pm.

This morning I visited Natural Grocers, a wonderful natural and organic grocery store.

I noticed their odd store hours posted on the door.

Monday- Saturday: 8:56 am – 8:04pm

Sunday: 9:56am – 7:06pm

Intrigued by the unusual hours, I went to the company’s website and found this:

We have a real pet peeve about those loud announcements that you often hear in stores, like this one:

“ATTENTION SHOPPERS! THE STORE WILL BE

CLOSING IN FIFTEEN MINUTES! PLEASE MAKE

YOUR SELECTIONS NOW AND GET TO THE

CHECK OUT SO WE CAN GO HOME! NOW!”

Instead, we think if you have come to shop with us we should be happy you are here. If you come a little early, we will open the doors with a smile to get you inside. If you show up right at closing, you are still welcome to come in and shop at your leisure. Those odd hours we list on the door are just a reminder to our staff and to you that we promise to welcome you and we will stand by that pledge.

My service experience at the drug store wasn’t horrible, yet it was far from remarkable. The friendly hours of Natural Grocers were refreshing, and they matched the service I got in the store.

Align your processes, policies, and people to deliver an amazing experience at the top of the day, throughout the day and at the very end of the day.

If your contact center hours are 8 am – 7 pm and someone calls at 6:59 pm, they deserve your full attention and a complete and enthusiastic service experience. Do a little extra, and you’ll be sure to give your customers a memorable and refreshing customer experience that they’ll rave about.

If you’re into organic and natural food, you might want to check out Natural Grocers. Great selection and really great prices. Not to mention, wicked-cool store hours.

Imagine sitting in a local coffee shop that’s nestled in a bookstore, and talking over a latte with Myra about ways to help your employees deliver the best possible customer experience and ways to help reduce stress on your employees as they deal with difficult customers.

Every week, often literally from a coffee shop, Myra gives you ideas that in one way or another are actionable towards improving your customer experience.

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How to Talk to Customers: Empathy, Tone and Making Personal Emotional Connections On Demand Webinar Training

This new video contains a step-by-step approach to speaking with customers with a friendly tone, empathy and concern.

Your people will lean the secrets for making personal emotional connection over the phone, personalizing email and chat, and how to convey empathy and concern.

How to Talk to Customers: Empathy, Tone and Making Personal Emotional

The biggest problem with the customer experience in most companies is how employees talk to customers. All too often, employees come across as indifferent, cold, uncaring, rushed or rude. This employee “attitude problem” can be the tipping point that sends customers to the competition. This attitude problem is what drives customers to tweet and blog about a poor customer experience. The great news is, with the right training, monitoring and coaching, employees can learn how to soften tones, truly convey empathy, make customers feel taken care of and even make memorable personal emotional connections with customers.

Get Myra’s Training In SCORM 1.2 Format For Your LMS!

20 Things to Say to Regain Control with Challenging Customers (Free Packet)

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